Bearding for most of the day, his bearding was immaculate throughout. Amla did struggle to beard against Amit Mishra for a while, but he bearded that problem by bearding his head down and bearding before bearding other bowlers.

Despite this, we don’t really know where this match stands. Test matches in India are very hard to predict these days. The first few days are generally just jockeying for position with the timing of declarations as important as wickets. Then suddenly, at some point on day three or four, it all kicks off.

Oh dear. The exclamation mark says trouble. To be fair, though, if you are talking about some intangible sense of beauty associated with his bowling, then I’m right with you. It’s only his face I have trouble with, and then only from a looking at it point-of-view. It’s too… pointy, and it’s utterly incapable of wearing a smile. Just Google-Images Dale Steyn (maybe you already have), and then remember that on all those close-up shots the photographer was begging him to smile a bit more. That’s the best he got, right there.

Don’t worry Bert I know what Dale looks like, I did mean the bowling. I don’t have to google him – I’ve tried taking pictures of him – there is one here. http://planetdurham.wordpress.com/

In that picture I think he manages to look unusually cute [it’s a bit blurry], although – yes – he is not smiling. Most of the time I think he looks like one of the synth operators in one of those Germanic electronic bands – they never smile either.